Fort Union Trading Post

Williston, North Dakota

A trip to Fort Union takes you back in time to the mid-19th century, the heyday of Fort Union and the fur trade on the Upper Missouri river.
Tour the partially reconstructed fort and walk where many famous folk from several countries and cultures walked, folk such as Kenneth McKenzie, Alexander & Natawista Culbertson, Father Pierre DeSmet, Sitting Bull, Karl Bodmer, and Jim Bridger.

Fort Union Trading Post was the most important fur trading post on the upper Missouri from 1828 to 1867. At this post, the Assiniboine, Crow, Cree, Ojibway, Blackfeet, Hidatsa, and other tribes traded buffalo robes and other furs for trade goods such as beads, guns, blankets, knives, cookware, and cloth.

Today, the reconstructed Fort Union represents a unique era in American history, a brief period when two different civilizations found common ground and mutual benefit through commercial exchange and cultural acceptance.